Health & Medicine
- Agriculture
EPA reviews hints of weed killer’s fetal risks
The Environmental Protection Agency will be convening meetings of its Scientific Advisory Panel on pesticides throughout 2010 to probe concerns about the safety of atrazine, a weed killer on which most American corn growers rely. The first meeting of these outside experts started Tuesday. And although a large number of studies have indicated that atrazine can perturb hormones in animals and human cells — and might even pose a possible risk of cancer amongst heavily exposed people, these outcomes were not the focus of EPA’s review Tuesday. Risks to babies were.
- Health & Medicine
Journal retracts flawed study linking MMR vaccine and autism
Deleted Scenes Blog: Biomedical reporter Nathan Seppa describes latest chapter in controversy created by now debunked research.
- Health & Medicine
Small study hints SSRIs delay breast milk in new moms
Women taking the antidepressant drugs began lactating later.
- Health & Medicine
Body fat linked to late puberty in boys
Boys can take a lot of ribbing from their peers for not being macho enough. A new study now indicates that it can take longer to begin transforming into a man if a boy starts out fat.
- Health & Medicine
Neurons may function more solo than thought
Neurons coordinate activity less often than previously thought.
- Health & Medicine
Running barefoot blunts foot’s force
A new study finds that going shoeless tempers impact but can’t say whether this difference reduces injuries.
- Humans
Cigarettes might be infectious
Science & Society blog: The tobacco in cigarettes hosts a bacterial bonanza — literally hundreds of different germs, including those responsible for many human illnesses, a new study finds.
- Health & Medicine
Searing the heart for the better
Electrode-tipped catheter destroys heart tissue to stifle atrial fibrillation, sometimes performing better than meds, study shows.
- Health & Medicine
Millions of women at risk of malaria during pregnancy
Potential problems include undetected illness and anemia in mothers, stillbirth and low birth weight in newborns,
- Life
MRSA bacterial strain mutates quickly as it spreads
Antibiotic-resistant microbe's detailed family tree reveals roots of the global infection.
- Life
Protein may be new target for obesity, diabetes therapies
Molecule regulates flip of a metabolic switch, helps determine how the body uses glucose.
- Earth
BPA is regulated . . . sort of
Food and Drug Administration officials “say they are powerless to regulate BPA” because of a quirk in their rules, according to a story that ran Sunday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It comes from a reporter who has made an award-winning habit of documenting the politics that have helped make the hormone-mimicking bisphenol-A a chemical of choice for many manufacturers.
